Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Starfish

This was at times a heavy read for me, but I love that there's a book about struggling with mixed identity. How Kiko talks about herself is how I used to talk about myself: unworthy, unloveable, ugly. But when she starts finding community, oh man, that really comforted my heart. The writing feels a bit younger than the protagonists age (17/18), and I don't love the YA trend of constantly reiterating things that we already know. Though, you could argue it's a character tool in this book because Kiko has high anxiety.

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bloodmaarked's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

a cute book but way too heavy-handed with its themes for my liking

✧ full review on my tumblr ✧

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_toni_'s review

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dark hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

phobosm's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

Summary: Girl who has grown up with trauma in a turbulent household suddenly has all sorts of miraculous blessings thrown upon her and she decides to walk away from them all, citing the reason as “independence”.

While the writing is engaging, I take many issues with several elements of the story such as the characters and the messages being portrayed.

One of the larger issues I have is with Jamie. As a character, he sounds like the typical ideal dream boy. He doesn’t seem to have his own character and exists solely for the purpose of furthering the main character’s personal development. He’s supposedly only around 17, yet I doubt very many people that age would exhibit the amount of maturity, patience, understanding, and persistence (despite multiple prolonged rejections) that he does. Even after being ignored and snubbed (and undeservedly so) by the main character, this doesn’t seem to deter his affection for her as evidenced in the epilogue. Almost nothing about him feels human or real. (Side note: girl completely GHOSTS her man with no proper explanation and is never punished for it. In fact, he even still helped her enter her dream school behind the scenes… and it’s implied that they get back together like nothing happened…what????)

There’s nothing wrong with selling a fantasy in a fictional story, but as a story that reaches out to young impressionable readers who may be facing similar struggles in their lives, telling them that an ever-understanding, endlessly patient, perfect prince charming will sweep them off their feet and rescue them from their flaws and their problems seems counter-productive to the lesson that the author is trying to preach, ie to be independent and love yourself first. Because let’s face it; while there were so many opportunities for Jamie to walk away, he never did. Kiko had no real driving force pushing her to be independent. Jamie, along with Hiroshi’s family provided her with nothing but love, acceptance and support. She left everyone behind out of her own free will because… reason? How do you teach people to be independent while also showing them no incentive to do so, because somehow you will serendipitously find a group of people who will provide you with all the love and support that you want and need?

I also take issue with what seems to be one of the core messages of the book. The author seems to have this misplaced belief that depending on people emotionally is a bad thing?? Here is one example, in which the main character refrains from telling her father about a potential s*xual abuse she experienced because she “won’t make him unhappy just for the sake of needing someone on my side. I won’t be like Mom.” The message from the author here is confusing and it’s not quite clear whether the author is advocating for or against the MC’s action here. On the one hand an earlier part of the book denounces the MC’s act of referring to herself as a burden, but here she reverts to an implication of such, even suggesting that the MC’s action of sharing her emotional burden to a loved one is emotionally manipulative and akin to being narcissistic. Much of this book’s subtext can very be easily interpreted as: “shoulder your trials and burdens alone, otherwise you will become emotionally handicapped and may very well end up ruined”.

Here’s my take on the topic: having social support is not wrong; it does not equate to burdening others, it does not make you weak, it is human. You are not less of an independent person just because you rely upon the kindness and compassion of others who extend them to you. Yes, it’s important to have your own footing and to avoid codependency, but there’s also nothing wrong with developing your self confidence alongside a healthy support system. We are social creatures. There were definitely healthy ways Kiko could have gone about maintaining her connection with Hiroshi and Jamie without having to walk away from their lives so abruptly, cold turkey.

On a related note, the notion that she wasn’t “allowing anybody to make [her] sad except for [herself]” is so ridiculous and borders on toxic positivity. Again I reiterate that we are social creatures. It is completely normal to feel upset over other people. Whether they love us, leave us, or drive us up the wall, the emotions we feel in response to others is normal. Healthy methods of emotional processing should be encouraged over suppressing them the way Kiko’s pep talks urge herself to do.

A final minor issue I have with the story: I suppose it’s possible, but Hiroshi and his family’s abnormally swift embracing of Kiko, just like Jamie’s character, feels too good to be true.

I can see many people enjoying and resonating with this book, but I personally find the shortcomings of the story and characters too overbearing for me to truly enjoy it. Overall, I feel like this book was trying too hard to do two things: 1) sell a fairytale fantasy where all your dreams can and will come true, and 2) teach readers to sober up in a world that can be harsh, both of which ultimately contradict the effects of each other.

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